Artificial intelligence is making human speech as malleable and replicable as pixels. Today, a Canadian AI startup named Lyrebird unveiled its first product: a set of algorithms the company claims can clone anyone’s voice by listening to just a single minute of sample audio.
A few years ago this would have been impossible, but the analytic prowess of machine learning has proven to be a perfect fit for the idiosyncrasies of human speech. Using artificial intelligence, companies like Google have been able to create incredibly life-like synthesized voices, while Adobe has unveiled its own prototype software called Project VoCo that can edit human speech like Photoshop tweaks digital images.
But while Project VoCo requires at least 20 minutes of sample audio before it can mimic a voice, Lyrebird cuts this requirements down to just 60 seconds. The results certainly aren’t indistinguishable from human speech, but they’re impressive all the same.
Lyrebird says its algorithms can also infuse the speech it creates with emotion, letting customers make voices sound angry, sympathetic, or stressed out.
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